Fruit press

[woodturner101]

Hello All. Having just started making my own wine I wondered if anyone has experience of a fruit press. I use the one I have for extracting honey from honeycomb and it works well. I always thought it was best to start the fermentation using the whole fuit but reading various posts here I see that wine is also made direct from juice such as WOW. So I am wondering if it would be best to extract juice from things such as elderberries, blackberries etc. or simply crush the fruit and start the fermentation then strain the juice as per most recipes.

Your thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Tony

 

[Moley]

Welcome to the forum :

A good question, to which I'm embarrassed to say I don't know the answer, but I know a man who will and I'll point him in this direction.

I did make myself a press last year, but thus far I've only used it for apples and pears.

 

[user 1290]

Hello All. Having just started making my own wine I wondered if anyone has experience of a fruit press. I use the one I have for extracting honey from honeycomb and it works well. I always thought it was best to start the fermentation using the whole fuit but reading various posts here I see that wine is also made direct from juice such as WOW. So I am wondering if it would be best to extract juice from things such as elderberries, blackberries etc. or simply crush the fruit and start the fermentation then strain the juice as per most recipes.

I've 2 presses (5 & 20 litres), 2 steamers (3 & 15 lbs capacity) and lots of buckets and use them in these ways:

1) Pressing - I pulp apples & freeze/defrost pears and press pure juice.. You can press soft fruits (freezing & defrosting helps), but you wont get any colour/flavour from the skins (so would be fine with white currants, gooseberries, rhubarb, melons and even strawberries).

2) Steaming - I use this method for blackberries, blackcurrants, loganberries, raspberries, strawberries and even bananas (don't be but off by the smell of steamed banana juice - it disappears completely!). It gets both colour and flavour but will leave lots of harsher flavours behind and the resulting wine will be smoother and drinkable quicker (especially elderberries!). The liquid produced is around 67% juice/33% water from condensed steam, not pure juice as produced by pressing. Some people have been brave enough to steam plums, dosed the juice with pectolase and produced clear wine but I haven't tried it myself. I also avoid using it for hard fruits like apples because I both have presses and it's supposed to be able to impart a 'cooked' flavour to the juice. The steamed juice can be used immediately, frozen in bags inside empty juice cartons so taking up less room than fruit in freezers or pasteurised in bottles.

3) Pulp fermentation - I now only use this for high pectin fruits such as plums, sloes & damsons (also necessary for red wine grapes). This will get the most colour and flavour out of fruit but the resulting wine takes longer to mature (and OH got fed up with buckets all over the kitchen from July - August).

Other methods I use/have used are:

4) Sugar juice extraction - Covering fruit with sugar will draw the juice out so you end up with a fruit syrup, but doesn't extract much colour. Works well with rhubarb.

5) Freeze/thaw extraction - Works very well with chopped, frozen and defrosted rhubarb where loads of clear juice will run out whilst it defrosts.

6) Simmer/boil - I only use this method with grated quinces.

 

[woodturner101]

Thanks very much Moley and David, much appreciated. :thumb: I have copied and printed your answer David so I can refer back to your good advice as I progress, hope that's OK.

All the best.

Tony